Poison
by totalfreedom
Summary: Fandom is in lack of keffy goodness, so here's my lil contribution. May keep it a one shot, may continue.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm a massive fan of keffy, and there just aren't enough keffy fics out there for my liking, so i decided to entertain myself and write something keffy. i may just leave this as a one-shot, but if any further ideas come up i'll be posting them : )**

One minute you're swirling in such pools of euphoria and liberation, that invincibility seems almost everyday, and the next moment the bondage of reality owns again; it carefully sits specs of mundane normalcy on the bridge of your nose, patting you on your head and telling you to be on your way until next time. A spiteful tease, in many ways, just like her. And it's haunting how this switch can just be flipped –how your switch can just flip. But this is what she does – so expertly – the way she's able to unravel all doubt and restraint with just a hint of one of her looks; you become a liability.

Never mind the fact that once you leave this room, this bed – her – your husband will cease to be an easily ignored entity shadowing in the background of your mind, and with the realization of just how real Kevin is (how real he's _always_ been) comes all of your wifely duties. Did you carry out all of your wifely duties today? The answer to that is always yes, but just barely, and it's ironic that the answer's always yes because you're sure that letting her lure you into her bed is not what being _his_ wife should entail. But, you'll tell yourself anything to tighten the noose around the neck of your relentless conscience.

"Going somewhere?" She croaks out into the scarcely lit room.

You stop trying to creep out of the bed like the guilty thief that you are, because lets face it, you meet up with her and you steal little shards of a fantasy that'll never be.

Still – on the edge of the bed – is how you sit, just managing to force a look in her direction.

"Kevin's waiting for me." You barely whisper; it's just a sub-vocal hiss.

But somehow her ears manage, they must, 'cause there goes that disparaging scoff that you've come to expect from her whenever one of your lust-driven nights reaches this point. It's always the same, always performed with a roll of the eyes and her signature all-knowing smug smirk. She doesn't even have to offer any words. The scoff is all that is needed to let you know you're being judged.

Well, she hasn't any right, not after what she did to you all those years ago.

"Fuck you Effy!" That isn't said in anything even close to a sub-vocal hiss, and Effy's not going to have to strain to hear this either: "You're the one who shat on everything, so don't try to make me feel like I'm the fuck-up here ok? I've got a husband now." Saying the last part feels like a nice glass of champagne after a stressful day at work. _Every_ _time_ you remind her feels like a nice glass of champagne after a stressful day at work.

It's monstrously abrupt, the way she pushes the back of her head off of the headboard to sit herself up. The bed whinges.

If Effy's angry, good.

"Katie," She laughs, almost manically. "I _know_ you have a husband, America and Italy know you have a husband, the _starving_ _kids_ _in_ _Africa_ know you've got a husband. The only time you're not mentioning him is when you've got my cunt in your mouth! Interesting , that, isn't it?."

It's the most animation you've ever witnessed from Effy, more animated than when her fingers are wound in your hair and tugging when you've got your head between her thighs, more animated then when her starved-for-a-steady-rhythm of breath body octopuses around your naked form as she quivers in orgasm. Weird if you think about it; that all you have to do to elicit this level of passion in her is mention events from six years ago.

Always did push each other's buttons, perhaps a little harder than necessary.

Effy's hand shovels a heap of hair over to one side of her head, and it's like the motion has helped her to turn over a new leaf, as a slightly softer than previous tone flows from her lips. "I… shouldn't have messed you around back then…shouldn't have hit you in the head with a rock, but you also have to acknowledge that you shouldn't have cornered me in the woods that night!"

Stripped to the bare element, it's an apology, but there's something non-committal about it, and you know that there always will be until you fulfill Effy's desire to hear that she wasn't the only one at fault that night.

Still, you're not going to admit that you shouldn't have cornered her in the woods that night, because you don't believe that. Far as you're concerned, you were perfectly within your rights. _She_ made it so that you had no other choice, goading you at every opportunity with surreptitious eye-sex, only to lean up into Freddie's lips, sending jealousy of dual purpose spiraling throughout each of your veins. You wanted to know what she was playing at, so you were perfectly within your rights to follow her deep into the wood's rustling twisted claws, and send her crashing to the dirt – whether she was tripping on shrooms or not. You were perfectly justified in mounting her, brutally marking her cheeks and neck with your handprints, because she was fucking with you, and nobody fucks with Katie Fitch. _She_ _**made**_ you corner her. _She_ _**made**_ it so that you had to show her who she was messing with. Katie fucking Fitch!

It's Katie Fitch: Head bitch in charge, not Effy Stonem: head bitch in charge.

That's the way it used to be anyway.

You're not going to acknowledge that you shouldn't have cornered Effy in the woods that night, although you wished you hadn't, because if you hadn't, the skin just next to your temple wouldn't lump under your fingers when you part your hair to style it in the morning, and you'd still be living life under the credo of _I'm Katie Fitch, nothing can touch me_. Effy didn't just break your skin open with that rock, she broke much more than that, and if she thinks that she's just going to waltz back into your life and have you at the click of her fingers, then she's even more of a cunt than you remember.

Fucking her is one thing. Loving her willingly is another. It's a spiteful tease, just like her.

You've now abandoned the bed, abandoned her, top around your neck as you throw your arms into it, "Whatever Effy. You always deliberately wound me up, flirting with everyone and anyone – even Naomi. You fucking wanted me to attack you in the woods, to choke you! That's how fucked up you were – are!"

There goes that other scoff of hers, the one that clues you in as to just how off the mark you really are, and you're certain that if she scoffs once more tonight you will kill her – literally open her up and watch her DNA fill the cracks in the laminate floorboards.

"Had nothing to do with me being fucked up." She corrects you, because it's, like, just fucking impossible that she could be wrong on the matter, just fucking impossible that you could be right. "…We were too alike, too different, and you were more homophobic than Shirley Phelps herself. _That_ wound me up Katie. Knowing that all you'd ever give me was sex and nothing else, because you couldn't stop hating your lust for me enough to ever consider loving me, is what _wound_ me up. I resented you and I just wasn't good at hiding it."

Even as venom slightly slickens her sentence, _this_ is a reminder of how much Effy must've changed; the very fact that she's said more than two words to you throughout the two months that you've been meeting up for this – whatever _this_ is – the very fact that there's sentiment to those words, the very fact that you can actually decode what the hell she's talking about with relative ease. _But_, she still looks the same, still gives those cryptic glances from time to time without putting forth any words to clear up the haze that they create in your head. Still has those big beautiful fucking blue eyes, that mane of fashionably mussed hair, and despite the changes, every same is a screwdriver with a bolt on the end of it jammed into your jaw, twisting on encore. You can't get past the jowl ache – won't.

"Yeah, well, this isn't happening again." You inform her, and once having pulled on your jeans add, "Just leave me alone from now on, yeah?"

"You know, you're not nearly as pretty when you're deluding yourself Katie."

She still has that arrogance, which in its silence is ridiculously loud. It's the worst kind, much worse than the arrogance you used to emit in college; she doesn't even have to work at it. And the most soul-clenching part about it is that her self-certainty is completely justified, because she's always been able to penetrate past your farces, and hate is much too merry a word to describe how you feel about that.

It's probably futile, but feeling the need to defend how bare you feel, you spit, "Fuck off! The only one who's deluding themselves here is you!" A sigh comes naturally from within – perhaps your body's way of cleansing your muscles of the emotions tightening them. "You're not God's gift. Just because you had those dickheads Cook, JJ, and Freddie fawning over you in college –"

"Don't forget to include yourself amongst that list Katie." These fourteen syllables and nine words is all it takes from her to shred the defenses that you were just having some success in building, and you feel as exposed as ever – recompense for even trying to cover up in the first place.

There's no retort floating on the surface of your lips for that, which is a rarity for you, so you make do with: "Like I said, _leave me alone_ from now on. Have we got that?"

There's no answer, no nod. Nothing. And the silence is cue for a hasty departure.

Although no response had followed last night's instruction – demand rather – Effy seems to be complying. She seems to've understood. She hasn't text you her usual taunting, '_see you next week_,' and for once you don't feel haunted by her. Thoughts of her soft hands escapading your skin don't follow you into the shower either (for once), like they usually do, even though they know how unwelcome they are, and breakfast isn't filled with conjecture as to what she might be doing with her day. It isn't.

It feels like it's over.

So It's a jarring experience when you drop by Emily's and Naomi's flat to find _her_ sat in their lounge, a glass swimming with what looks like whisky poised in her hand, the two of them giggling, apparently, at something they've just seen on the television . _She_ hasn't seen you yet, neither of them have, but from your position in the doorway, you only see her. Never mind the bright yellow of Naomi's casual t-shirt, because the browns, blacks, and navy blues that comprise Effy's appearance are a million times louder, to you, anyway.

So loud it hurts, and when the cacophony becomes too much, you react in the only way you know, the only way _she_ deserves. "What the fuck's she doing here?" The bag on your shoulder purposely thumps the vacant settee, over by the window, when it gets tossed out of pure disgust.

That more than gets their attention. It snatches their giggles and gives Naomi the expression that comes with having just consumed Marmite. Naomi hates Marmite. As for Effy, well, who knew what her face meant?

"Katie, look," Naomi starts with a conspicuous sigh, but you're voice tramples all over hers.

"Does Emily know that you spend your days with the fucktard who tried to kill me, whilst she goes out to put food on your table Naomi?"

Effy's eyes are searing on your skin as you deliberately focus that perfected Katie Fitch glare at Emily's traitor of a girlfriend, and they're searing because you can feel the thick accusation of hypocrisy that they're almost stabbing you with.

But so what? So what if you've been meeting Effy, one night a week, for sex over the last two months? So what if it's somewhat hypocritical of you to now be chewing into Naomi for spending time with the rock-happy brunette? Like, so fucking what? It's you that has to live out the rest of your days with a fucking tattoo of what happened that night blemishing the flesh that neighbors your temple. And on an off day, you're the one who has to talk your anxieties into acquiescence before the idea of leaving the house becomes a friendly one. It's _**your**_ place to say when – _**if**_ – Effy will ever be granted forgiveness, not Naomi's.

"Look, I'll go." Effy looks to Naomi, smiling weak and brief, before slowly making it to her feet, almost as if wary that any sudden movement will drive your palpable anger into something even more sinister. Perceptive as ever, she's right.

As difficult as it is to remember the last time that you and Effy agreed on something, it doesn't matter, because you've never been more in assent than you are now. "Yeah, just fuck off!" You bark, as she sits her glass of wine down on the coffee table and slips into her brown leather jacket.

Naomi quickly jumps up, "No Eff, You don't have to go. Stay." She sets a preventative hand on Effy's shoulder, whilst shooting you a glare that's almost as acrimonious as yours. Not quite though. The disdain in her eyes is manufactured. It doesn't come from within – an accumulative of anguished life experiences – like yours does, and hers visibly lacks bite because of it.

Effy glances your way, and for a second you think that she's silently asking for your permission to drop out of her jacket and resume her spot on the settee, but it soon becomes apparent that she's not. Her head is slowly shaking from side to side, and there's a small, yet vastly irritating, smirk playing on the same lips, which last night, were responsible for briefly muting your reluctance to forgive her. Then it becomes clear: she's not asking _**you**_ for _**anything**_. She's just traded in her scoff for _this_ side to side head motion and smirk, but the mockery is still there, in all of its presence, and so is that air of, '_I know something that you don't_.'

The unspoken goading – at least that's the way you've interpreted it – fast eats away at you, eats away at all awareness of the blonde haired, blue eyed, third person in the room, and out slips an enraged, "I told you last night to fucking leave me alone from now on! What part of that are you finding difficult Stonem?"

Silence washes over the room and your palm flies to your betraying lips. But the words have long escaped, and to all eyes in the room, throwing your palm over your mouth has probably just incriminated you even further.

Cautiously peering over at Naomi, it's easy to hear the question marks dancing around her head, bumping into each other and deliberating, before they cease and culminate in the blonde's: "From now on?" Her sight flickers enquiringly between the two of you.

The way you look at Effy and the way she looks at you is responsible for the partially confused blonde's next question. "H-have you two been… seeing each other… or something?"

Easily, it could've been a confused frown warping Naomi's features, but the ridiculousness of what she's just asked has sent that frown the other way, resulting in an incredulous chuckle.

Effy remains silent, remains in power by leaving the task of answering Naomi's question to you, and how you abhor her for it. How you've always abhorred her for it.

She was the same back in college; seldom opening her mouth, but when she did, something thought provoking always came out, and when you'd try to embark with her on those thoughts that she'd caused you to give birth to…silence. She would even provoke thought with her silence, using her azure pools to say what needed to be said. It made her intriguing. She was the last page of an intoxicating book, with which you had to keeping checking for a sequel. There _never_ was a sequel though, just more intoxicating books, which forced your intrigue into constantly checking for sequels. The power was always hers, was _always_ in her silence.

_Bitch_!

Somehow Naomi's crushing expectation of an answer melts for the moment, flooding images of the night you found yourself naked and underneath Effy Stonem for the first time, bodies writhing together in a blur of perspiration, labored pants, soft skin and familiar yet foreign scents, filling your senses. She'd taken your power then too, just as she was doing now, had hardly said anything, had ignored Freddie and Cook's embarrassing attempts to win her attention, had gazed at you all night, , had prompted you to frown and finally ask, '_What_?'

You'd been quiet to the best of your ability (because Katie Fitch and _silent_ was never a relationship that was going to work) that night too, thought you'd give _Elizabeth_ a taste of her own fucking medicine, because ever since college had commenced you'd been in her ear, painting a picture of just how fierce everything could be if she'd just combine forces with you to run Roundview. But the raven-haired girl never took the bait, though saying that, the raven-haired girl also seemed to take deliberate care not to shatter your vision. She simply ceased to respond, and eventually, being ignored by _**her**_ became excruciatingly unbearable. So you'd show her, let her know who she was dealing with. Katie fucking Fitch waits for nobody, and for once, buzzing around Effy hadn't been at the top of your list of priorities. Everyone else in attendance that night had enjoyed conversation from you, and you from them, then there was Effy, stood staring at you – through you – it'd become impossible to tell after an hour or two.

'_What?_' You'd finally asked her, with an irritated frown.

She'd remained ever so powerfully silent, just smirked, knowingly, and everything seemed to belong to her again. Everything. Even you.

_Powerless_.

"Nice surprise to see you here Katie, considering…." Enter Emily, slinging her work bag on the settee next to yours, although the cheer in her hazel's quickly dim when she attunes to the precarious mood lingering. Then she spots Effy, and whatever's left of the cheer in her eyes dwindles to nothing, dwindles into minus numbers, all the way into anger. "What's going on?"

"I was just leaving." You announce, hands, belonging to the wealth of discomfort in the room, pushing you towards the front door, and just before scarlet sunlight is kissing your face, your ears pick up on the torrent of inquisition that your twin begins bombarding her girlfriend with. Nothing else is heard once you slam the door in and work your legs down each step, the process of air filling and leaving your lungs becoming a less stagnated one the further you make it away from _her_. She's poison, you finalize.

Now safe in the alleyway next to Emily and Naomi's flat, it's all you can do to stop what's just happened from haunting you. All you can do to stop _her_ haunting you. But it's as futile as a hand covering a bomb that's about to go off. Effy is there – here – there when Kevin's fuzzy chest is tickling the side of your face whenever you snuggle in bed, there when the mirror reflects you thumbing the scar she gave you, there in those times when you're so fucking worked up, thinking about her, that your feet stutter on the way to the office restroom, so that you can pinch at the coral of your goose-pimpled nipples and roll your slippery clit around in your fingers in the confines of one of the cubicles. And now Naomi might know thanks to the wafer thin performance you just gave in there.

"Sorry Katie."

You know that voice; you'd know it anywhere, because only she says your name in that way. It soothes and alarms you simultaneously, and it's unbearable to have such conflicts going on within – a tug of war between you and you. Yet somehow, when she walks those mud-blasted, Effyesque, boots towards you, gently slips both her hands around your drained cheeks and leaps for your lips, pulling on them with her own, all alarm silences.

Everything slips into nothingness, like that state between sleep and consciousness.

_Poison_, you constantly roll around your head.

_Poi-son_

_Poi…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello. Thanks to every person who read this. The comments were really generous *group hug* Some inspiration struck me, so i thought i would type it out and post it. **

It's the second time this week that you've seen the inside of Effy's bedroom, felt the kiss of her silk, satin, quilt, tasted the secretions of her womanly treats. Usually it's only once, and that's a placatory in those moments when you jump into your car only to realize that your shoes aren't sticking to the interior carpet… when you realize that Kevin must've hoovered it out for you. _Only once a week_, you chant to yourself when Kevin, wary, comes home from work and offers to love away those pesky, sharp, pains that've recently been plaguing your lower back. It's ridiculous though, because _once_ is enough. But somehow, being the tenacious Katie Fitch, you'd made it ok – acceptable if you're only seeing the inside of Effy's room once a week.

No more.

Twice a week is too much to bury, makes that spade which you must lift in order to toss dirt over this seedy little affair much too heavy, and it makes you wonder just when exactly these recent back problems began. You don't remember suffering them before _she_ came back into your life. Before having to shovel dirt over seedy little affairs.

_Poison_.

Well she doesn't taste like poison, and she doesn't feel like it either. But it's funny how to touch and taste her murders a little bit of you each time you indulge. Murders your marriage vows just that little bit more. _Well, she's one of those odorless, colourless poisons_, you reason. Undetectable until veins are warring for freedom from their captor: skin. Until you're convulsing in a disorderly, unattractive, heap on the floor, before everything flatlines.

You've thought about that – flatlining. What it would be like to not have to deal with…this.

You'd thought about it in hospital when the realization that some scrawny, mute, brunette, who you happened to hold a slight affection for, had nearly killed you. Suicide. It'd fallen out of the mouths of enough attention seeking teens in school, and out of the television box on occasion. But you'd never even considered it until that day in hospital, and you're not turned sour by the thought of it now, as you take your eyes around the theme park of Effy's curves in the dark of her room.

"I hate you." It sort of just falls out, brushing against the still silence soft and solemn. The tears sort of just fall out too, tickling the sides of your nose and running into the corners of your mouth, so that bitter salt is knocking at your lips. They eventually roll down your chin and pad into the duvet softly.

Suddenly the bed croaks and her arms are less than milliseconds away from encircling you, but you swat them away like an annoying fly. "Don't fucking touch me!"

Effy sort of leaps back, wearing startle and confusion on the features you were, just half an hour ago, kissing, and spasming against. But even with the thick mist of abruptly interrupted sleep, startle, offence, and confusion orbiting her, she still gets out, "That's not what you were saying a little while ago Katie."

You consider telling her that this is it – that you mean it - the very last time that this is going to happen. The very last time you're ever going to see this room, her, but decide that it's better to say nothing at all.

_Like, kill her with silence_…

The silence grows preponderantly, all sorts of emotions from the both of you getting caught up in it – tuning it up – as you now step into your pants and hook your flustered c-cups back into their bra.

"That's not what you were saying a little while ago, _Katie_." She repeats, the quiet ire in it unmistakable.

She deserves silence, Effy does, so you reward her goading with more, almost to the point where it grows a pair of arms and legs, and begins to play ridiculously loud air guitar in the middle of the room. It's fun when she's angry or upset, or exhibiting anything that means she's not in control anymore, because she's always in fucking control and that's an ache in the jowl.

…

"I fucking love you Katie!" She finally yells, like it was fucking torn from her.

The blazer you wore over halts from your pulling its sleeve up the length of your arm, but then it dawns that it's not actually the blazer that's halted. It's you. You're not pulling it anymore. Far from that, since Effy's desperate declaration rumbled against your eardrum, there are a lot of things you can no longer do.

It's become impossible to look up and actually take in the woman who's just verbalized what you've known all along, and even though you've known for a long time, it doesn't lessen the blow of shock. Even the tears seem to halt on your cheeks in shock.

You can't cry anymore. Perhaps because there's something warm filing into your being.

It's become impossible to get words to leave the opening and closing hole in your face.

It's become impossible to stabilize the annoyance thumping beneath your ribcage.

Even louder is the sound of her wriggling in the silk, satin, sheets. "Naomi's already worked out what's going on. It's only a matter of time before Emily knows too. Then Kevin."

There's no making sense of that little remark, at least not in your frenzied mind. It doesn't fit with the earth-shattering demeanor of a few seconds ago. Then again, nothing makes sense when Effy's around…yet it does. And that in and of itself makes no sense. Whether sense can be made of it or not, one thing is clear in your mind, and it's important enough to break silence for, so your eyes dart up at her: "Kevin is _never_ going to find out about this! This was over. Finished. The only reason you got me to come back here with you was because I was upset about that blonde traitor knowing, and she's _your_ friend, so y-you better fucking keep her quiet ok?"

And there it goes; natural order resuming as Effy just beams those two impossibly blue crystals at you, and in her silence – in her reluctance to concur or defy – all of the power is hers again. "Don't just sit there gawking at me," You bark, eyes driven wide by the mere thought of others knowing about this debaucherous little arrangement between the two of you, "Keep Naomi quiet _ok_?"

Features melting into something more human and less oracle, Effy slowly shakes her head and looks down into the deep silk duvet, seemingly talking to it when she shrugs and says, "I don't control anybody."

"_You fucking sure about that_?" Reverberates off of each and every wall in your mind, because the first time she lured you back into her bed, it didn't feel like you were in control of _anything_. Either way it's a no; Effy's not going to keep that blonde traitor (because ever since she betrayed Emily with that Sophia slut she's been a traitor by your standards) quiet – not even going to try, as her shrug indicated.

Finally she looks back up, something in her eyes saying that it's up to you now. You hold all the cards, except you don't at all. She does, as fucking usual. It feels like she's playing with you, poking you with a stick, even though you know she's not, but the feeling is enough to wind your entire body tight. "Well since you won't keep that slag's mouth shut, I will. It's not like I didn't already fill her mouth with blood, when she cheated on Emily, is it?"

Effy's not fooled by the threat for a second. She knows your game, more or less tells you she does when she smirks into: "You can try to blackmail me by threatening Naomi all you want, babe –"

"Don't fucking call me that!"

"Whatever. It's not going to change the fact that Kevin's _going_ to find out." Effy almost promises, the unspoken _even if I have to tell him myself_ implied.

Something in your jaw locks, won't let you hurl the threat of physical abuse at _her_. Not at _her_. No, it's much more pleasurable a thought to think about biting the flesh of her salty stomach, and tattooing her back with your nails, and how it's going to burn to look at yourself in the mirror knowing this.

The sleeves of you blazer find their way onto both of your arms in an almighty, exasperated, shrug. She watches you stalkerishly, like you're a cornered animal, almost daring you to say something as brutal and admonishing as what you've just said about Naomi to her.

She watches, knowing that you won't, and you jump into the rest of your clothing knowing you won't either.


	3. Chapter 3

**I think its cool the way that people seem to be using the term 'keffy goodness' now. lol. You guys are very kind for your comments! I'm not taking them lightly! I'm really glad that i can share my keffy-love with others : ) Post-War, i had to google anthropomorphism. Thanks for bringing a new word to my attention. I'm one of those weirdos who scours the dictionary daily for a new word and then finds ways to incorporate it into the day. *shrugs* Happy you find it to be sinister. I've always thought that a keffy relationship should have a spooky air to it. Effy's darkness is too vast to not inject everything she touches with just a little bit of it.**

Later in the week, when Emily drops by claiming that she simply just wants to spend some time with her twin, you know. You know that her blonde traitor of a girlfriend has regaled her with tales of what's taking place between you and Effy, and now you're sat with you sister, keeping to far ends of the couch, indulging in games of excruciating small talk.

James' latest football match. Weather. Work. They're all worlds apart, but they're all motoring towards one thing, and you know it.

The TV isn't on either, and that should sit well since you have enough drama of your own, but you wouldn't begrudge a few images dancing across the massive silver _Panasonic_ box; anything that'll suck you in, out from the nightmare that's forming a civilization on Emily's tongue, about to erupt from her mouth at any given second…

"Naomi and I had words over Effy being at ours."

And there it is; the incision.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I told her she was sleeping on the couch, and then she said that you and Effy had… already been seeing each other?"

And there it is; the blood spill.

_Bitch_! Never were fond of Campbell, or the way she treated Emily. But this isn't about Emily now, isn't just about how Campbell lured your twin back into a relationship covered in the bruises and abrasions of adultery, and you couldn't be prouder of the fact that the bone in the blue-eyed traitor's nose quivered and crumbled under the vigor of your forearm the night she'd told you to '_mind your own fucking business for once_.' The night you'd driven over to comfort an almost suicidal Emily. The night it had all exploded about Sophia. But it seems she still hasn't learned.

Now it's personal, and the next time you see her she'll know it.

"Not like you can trust anything Naomi says is it Em? I mean she did cheat on you and keep her pokerface about it for the better part of a year."

It's desperate, it's bitchy and it's not fair, your comment – or rather the tongue-tsunami you just let thrash your sister – but it was said whilst recordings of all the contemptuous scenarios of Naomi dropping you in the shit plagued the inner-workings of your mind.

Only when the picture of Emily, now small, hunched and wounded, reaches you do you begin to mop up the blood that now seems to be spilling from your sister, "Sorry Em… I just, like, don't take nicely to that cunt you call a girlfriend talking shit about me."

"She wasn't talking shit! – and don't call her a cunt Katie – She told me…" Emily silences, and if what you think is coming is indeed coming then you know why: Emily's preparing her vocal chords for the job, preparing the civilization on her tongue for the strenuous task of hurling the words out into the static atmosphere of your living room, preparing… "She told me she thinks that there's…something going on between you and Effy?"

Fuck how tactful Emily has just tried to be whilst dropping that little bomb, the implications are there and in their innate state, they possess not a drop of tact, and if they do they don't feel like it, because they're fucking true. Doesn't matter that caring, supportive, Emily is the one prodding you about the true nature of your involvement with the tall brunette – it could've, like, been the man from the 10 o clock news, or fucking _Buddha_ – any prodding of the subject calls your inner army to the frontline, every soldier ready to do what is necessary to keep their governor from coming face to face with a bullet.

"Right!" You soar to your feet, fingers frantically terrorizing the draws and all of the papers atop of the wall unit, "The fuck are my keys?"

A frown makes a creased shirt of Emily's face, "Why, where are you going?"

"To sort your stupid, _lying_, girlfriend!" You scream full-chested, as though it should be hideously obvious, fingers still blind and frantic over soft, sharp, small and painful, objects of the wall unit whilst you hold eyes identical to your own. Except, in this very moment they're not identical to your own at all. They're full of a knowing which reaches into your chest and tweaks at the thumper behind your ribcage, sending it into unhealthy stutters.

…

"Oh my God," You watch a blanching Emily mutter to herself, "You _are_ having an affair with her aren't you? What the fuck, Katie? What the actual fuck?"

_Fuck! How the fuck do you know me so well Emily_?

"Don't be so fucking silly."One of your hands, seeking desperately to trivialize this situation, whizzes through the air, and it just may have worked if it hadn't been for your annoying lisp. The actresses on TV made it look easy, and growing up acting was always an avenue that sang to you; fooling Jenna and Rob into believing that your bed had been slept in had been simple enough.

But now, in this moment, you know why you work in an office, sat behind a bloody PC screen all day, dealing with disgruntled, unmannered, knobheads over the phone.

_Try again Katie_. "Emily, don't be silly. I _hate_ the bitch!" Well that's not a fabrication; you do hate her, and up until now its been easy to tell yourself that that very hate stems from the incident out in the woods six years ago, easy to tell yourself that you could never forgive anybody who humiliated and broke you in such the way that she managed. But now, as you burn under your twin's condemning, molten, glare, the realization that you only hate _her_, because, because…you love her, impales your being, and something unholy begins to gargle in your stomach.

"I _hate _her!" You repeat, attempting to make old reasons fit again, attempting to convince Emily and yourself.

One is a failure, and so is the other.

"Kevin doesn't deserve this Katie. He treats you like _gold_!"

Yeah, well gold's nothing compared to the way Effy's fingers drumming relentlessly inside of you makes your eyes slot-machine in the back of your head – to the way her stupid, beautiful, fucking smirk instantly calls a bubbling of excitement to your soul, to the glow that thoughts of her give to those monotonous moments where you're making Kevin's sandwiches for work, or waiting for the colour to set in your hair before washing it out.

Gold's nothing because, '_Fuck sake_, _I'm in love with her_.'

Funny, how she manages – and effortlessly at that – to make you feel like platinum and shit simultaneously. Everything's a fucking oxymoron with her. She's a poison which is killing and keeping you alive simultaneously. You're jeopardizing the marriage, home, and stability that you have for a walking oxymoron.

There's nothing you can do to stop your head from bowing; it's much too heavy with secrets, treachery, and shame. Much like that shovel.

"Oh!" Both yours and Emily's sight races in the direction of the new addition to the room, not that there's a winner. Not like there could be a winner in this situation. "Evening Emily. You haven't been round here in ages. So, what brings my beautiful wife's sister round then?" He says, hairy knuckles untangling the handle of his briefcase and sending it to the foot of the couch with a domesticated thud.

Both you and Emily jump.

Judging by the vacancy dulling your twin's face, you'd surmise that her ears hadn't picked up on the sound of the front door opening and closing either, but it's hard to hear anything through the deafening percussion that is shock, and it's hard to hear anything through poisonous revelations.

"Yeah, Kevin," Attempts Emily, but in the end she has to pause due to her uncooperative voice, has to regroup (as best as she can) and fabricate a smile. You decide that she's a much better actress than you, but then hiding who she was for all those years would have given her considerable experience. "Been busy, what with Naomi losing her job. Had to make up her hours and salary with overtime." There's a tinge of resentment present in what she says, and it's astounding that your little sister can escape out from underneath the rubble of what she learned just minutes before with such ease, dust herself off, and jaunt her thoughts somewhere else entirely, so authentically that the apt emotions seep from her every pore.

He glances your way, blasting you with teeth so white that dad'd be proud, and brings his five-hundred pound pair of shoes across the distance separating you, before slithering a firm hand around your now rigid waist. "Would you tell your sister that if she and her girlfriend need money, all she has to do is say how much and it's theirs?" His pursed lips intrude on what was once a neat little side-fringe on their way to your clammy forehead. "Emily!" He says, spinning back around, "You need money, just say. No point expending yourself at work in order to get by. That's not what life's about. It's supposed to be fun."

"Thanks." Emily nods, warps her face in another one of those smiles that might as well be made out of a Ken doll.

All three of you know that Emily's never going to take your husband up on his offer, no matter how dark overtime's paintbrush colours the area just below her eyes, but Kevin's offered – there to help once again – and that's all that matters.

_The bastard_.

Always there to bloody help. It was the same the day you met. The classic: Girl's flimsy shopping bags tear; guy's there to help her load the punctured cans of beans, and burst packets of crisps into her boot scenario.

Should've known you were doomed from that alone.

The story of the kind, caring, understanding helper and the selfish taker only ever ends one way.

"Anyway, I'm going to jump in the shower. Get the stench of work off of my skin," You and Emily push out a chuckle because it feels like you're supposed to. No other reason. "Nice seeing you Em, and pop round more often if you can."

You both listen to Kevin's shoes beat the staircase until it becomes thin and the occasional creak of the landing is all that's detectable.

Emily waits 'til she has your guilty eyes, waits until she's got full hold of the windows to your soul and then jabs an irate finger in the direction of the staircase, and whispers an anything but calm, "_That's_ who you're doing this to."

...

"I know."


End file.
